


Springtime of Youth

by sleipnirismybaby



Category: Naruto, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Age Difference, M/M, More at eleven, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, SO DON'T COME FOR ME, Transmigration, aizawa is so thirsty he can identify that ass at 500 feet, dabi gets adopted and others too, exasperated!shouta, how unfortunate that won't hold up in the court of law, i've never read or watched bnha in my life, is it really vigilantism is he's not using a quirk, leader of a vigilante group aka villain rehabilitation center, quirkless!lee, vigilante!lee
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:53:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29360607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleipnirismybaby/pseuds/sleipnirismybaby
Summary: Rock Lee dies in one life only to wake up in another. Quirkless? Worthless? Through the power of youth Lee will show everyone the genius of hard work!!(Aizawa would like to protest. No, he doesn’t have a type, shut up.)
Relationships: Rock Lee/Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead
Comments: 10
Kudos: 67





	Springtime of Youth

Lee wakes up the way he dies, crushed beneath rock and metal. Dust chokes him, and stale air fills his lungs as he gasps for breath. His entire body hurts, a vicious stabbing pain in his left leg, and a terrible throbbing in the back of his head. It all feels more painful than it should, his impressive tolerance stretching past breaking and into dust.

The last of his memories involve collapsing a mountain range on his enemies and himself, sacrificing everything to complete his mission. The pain and agony is expected. But waking up… how is he even alive? 

Lee isn’t a fool — he should be dead. 

No mortal could survive opening all eight of the gates. And despite claims to the contrary (from his most unvirtuous and duplicitous opponents) Lee is only human. Not even he can outrun the collapse of a whole mountain range. The enemy shinobi were just icing on the cake.

His breaths rasp in his chest, and he can’t feel even the dredges of chakra in his body. As if there was never any in the first place. 

Rule number #123 of Gai-sensei’s Ultimate Wisdom and Knowledge resounds in his heart. He Is Not Dead! So he must strive onwards, with glorious Courage and Discipline.

He regulates his breaths to sustain what fresh air is seeping into his rocky (hahaha) prison. The Blossoming Holy Lotus Heavenly Healing Breaths calm his heart and mind, and puts him back on the path to understanding his dubious position.

Even Iwa shinobi are wary and careful when extracting themselves and their comrades from rockslides, with any unfortunate shift in the earth viable for a painful crushing death. Right now, Lee has neither his body or his chakra to help himself.

And his body feels strange, somehow smaller and weaker than even blowing open all eight gates and being crushed should account for. He focuses on his breaths, cycling his body’s physical energy, connecting with each part of his body. There is definitely something horribly wrong, but he is too woozy and uncertain to pinpoint _what_. 

The head wound is worse than he thought, fresh, warm blood creeping down the nape of his neck and onto his shoulders and back. He wanted to sleep, to close his eyes and never open them until this nightmare is over. 

But he will never forgive himself for giving up, it is not his nindo to sit down and die with breath and life still in his limbs! Gai-sensei and Tenten and his friends are waiting for him in Konoha, he will not let them down!

The rock shifts above him, metal rattling and shrieking around him. The enemies had built their headquarters into the mountain, hollowing out and weakening it enough that Lee had crushed it with the strength of his taijutsu.

Everyone in the mountain should be dead, so where is this voice coming from? 

“-ere! Heat sign—ca—ful. It’s dang—” The weight pining Lee down shifts, and he stifles a groan as his injured leg spasms.

“There’s a kid—!” the voice shouts, “bring—!” Lee can't make out the words, a child? He’s far away from any village, there shouldn’t be a child. How can a child come to this remote part of Mountain Country? There was only the camp of enemy shinobi, which he crushed (rather more literally than the mission required) and himself. Even with his death, he’s achieved the mission objective and brought down his enemies in a blaze of glorious combat!

A most youthful achievement! Not even Sakura-chan can claim a mountain range on her kill list.

Lee 37, Sakura 39. He’s been catching up, it’s a shame he won’t be competition worthy for months, he was on a winning streak.

If Lee could survive opening all the gates, being crushed by a mountain range, and Sakura-chan’s punches, then his torture at the hands of these new opponents would not kill him! He may never be fighting fit again, but he will live! He will not give up!

“Hey, kid! Stay wi—!” the voice is back, closer than before, and the weight above him shifts again, freeing his leg, but also tearing the metal pole from his calf. His entire leg spasms with agony, and light illuminates the dusty darkness in which he’s been entombed.

... _Owwww_! That isn't good. He didn’t scream, because he’d braced himself just in time, but if he was a man prone to expletives, such as Naruto, this would have been the moment to use them. 

He’d already lost too much blood from his head wound, and now a new patch is pooling around his leg. The world tilts around him, the sounds of the world rushing through his ears, spinning him until he can’t tell up from down. His body wants to vomit and faint, but he isn't safe. If he can just get to his medkit he can staunch his wound, take out this new threat, and try to make it to the nearest village. From there he can make it back to his village, or to Gaara-san.

More noises rattle above him, then people start moving around, lights flickering as they deliberate over him. Just give him one moment, and he can take them! He grits his teeth, the tangy iron of blood and the cloying scent of dirt and rust all around him. How many people? Three or four? 

He has to stay awake! A challenge, to count each breath rattling from his lungs. 

One, two, three, fou—r, fi...v...e, s…

.

.

.

Lee wakes up all at once, training and instinct keeping his body lax and his breathing deep. There’s a pinching ache in his elbow from an injection and his leg is throbbing in the distant way of a traumatizing but recently healed injury.

His body is still lacking all traces of chakra, the release of all eight gates having blown apart every part of his chakra coils. He doesn’t know how he isn’t dead, but he won’t look a gifted horse in the mouth, as the civilian’s say!

He breathes in the smell of antiseptic, and the usual scent of a hospital...or a lab.

There is no one else in the room, and machines beep from the corner.

Strange…Konoha is well known as being the best when it came to their medical program, and even _there_ , medical machines are rare and prized.

He isn't in Konoha, there is no one waiting at his bedside and no scent of flowers from get-well bouquets.

He is alone, weakened and probably in enemy territory. But he’s not done! His spirit is uncrushed, his determination strong!

His eyelids flutter open, scanning the room with his sight, since his other senses are dull and lagging. It is a hospital room, not a lab, thank Sage.

Hospital rooms aren't set aside for prisoners, so he tentatively puts these people in the non-hostile category. Pending observation.

The door opens and a nurse in scrubs shuffles inside with a clipboard.

And that’s when Lee is certain something has gone terribly wrong.

Even the weirdest of bloodline limits doesn’t give people fabric as skin, buttons as eyes, and strings as hair. Lee swallows. 

What the —?!

He takes a big breath to calm himself, and gives the nurse a big smile. This may be the weirdest thing he’s ever woken up to and that includes the time with Gaara and the cactuses. 

The nurse, who remained as strange and unusual as they were at first glance, tuts and fusses over him, but pronounces him mostly healed. Lee pases through this examination in a haze of confusion because now that his eyes are open, and another person is looking at his body, _he_ is looking at his body.

And it is wrong. All wrong.

“Do you feel okay to see the police, young man?”

Police, with questions that Lee definitely isn't sure he has the answer to. Still they would give him more to go on than what he currently has, which is nothing. Other than the fact that Lee is 99% sure he isn't in the Elemental Countries anymore.

He cranks on his youthful smile #3 (with extra teeth and sparkle), only slightly shaky around the edges. “Yes, I will see them.”

His shinobi way isn't one of cowardly conduct, but Lee knows even Gai-sensei would tell him to lay low and take advantage of his surroundings to gain his bearings. He is in a strange body in a strange land. These things happened to _Team 7_ not to Rock Lee!

The nurse smiles (more a strange distortion of the stitches where their mouth should be) and leaves the way they came. Lee closes his eyes, and begins to center himself. There is still no chakra, but even what should have been the ruined remains of his chakra coils is gone as if it never existed. It’s like he lost a limb, searching for that familiar energy inside himself but finding nothing.

A few minutes later, the door opens again and two men(?) walk into the room, dressed in the same uniform. One looks more like a bear walking on two legs than a human, while the other looks like a civilian until he gets close enough that Lee can see his eyes. They are like black bottomless pits, but his eyes are still _there_. Nothing a bloodline limit can’t do, but they don’t feel like shinobi.

“Hello young man, could we get your name?” the bear…man — person? says in a gentle tone. His voice rumbles and his paws are bigger than Lee’s head. He moves like he has some battle experience, but doesn’t canvas the room, or use any chakra. A civilian with a little training then, putting his body on the line to protect others, how youthful! 

But also strange. Even under Naruto’s optimistic leadership, and with cultivated friendships between the villages, demilitarization is far away. This world must be a different sort than the Elemental Nations, if civilians are part of the police force!

“Did you find anyone with me?” he asks instead of answering the question. He watches their faces closely to see if they give anything away. 

“No, they haven’t found anyone,” the bear officer says softly, “but heroes are still on the scene. There’s hope your family survived.” The two blatantly glance at each other, and the one with bottomless eyes looks resigned. Lee has seen that face many times, this body’s family is either dead, missing or an unidentified survivor.

The shinobi part of himself is relieved that he won’t have to face this boy’s family wearing his face, but another grieves over the lives lost. He just hopes the child died in this body, and not in Lee’s own.

His own ending was agonizing as he tore his body apart from the seams with his own power. He died when the earth buried him, the way this child died buried under concrete and metal. A sympathetic death of souls, but somehow Lee has lived and crossed over, even as the child died.

Still, heroes…? 

Lee saw bottomless eyes look down and twist one hand around his opposite wrist. It’s a fidgeting gesture. He knows his companion is telling pretty lies to a child whose whole life has been crushed. It is sweet of him, but in this case unneeded. Lee doesn’t know anything about this child’s life.

“We need your name and birthday, if you could,” the non furry cop says. Lee doesn’t have any name or a birthday to give but his own, and amnesia isn't an option Lee feels he can pull off. It is time to do the honored Team Gai Fake It Till You Make It Plan! Aka act like you belong, and no one will know you don’t.

He gives the officer a thumbs up and says, “My name is Rock Lee! Born November 27th, my sign is Dragon!” 

The man writes that answer down. “A dragon huh? You must be pretty awesome then.”

Well, Lee is certainly something, lost mostly. 

As the officer’s finish their questions, the bearperson pats his hand with their furry paw. “Don’t worry, youngling. We’ll find your family, just rest and recover.”

Lee gives a bright smile. “Yosh! I will get better before you know it!”

The police officers laugh, their tense shoulders loosening a bit as they leave. Lee waves at them enthusiastically until the door closes behind them. His hospital room is empty now, not even one vase of flowers to decorate it. He pulls himself from the bed, clutching at the IV line with small, terribly small hands. He needs to know, he needs to see.

He walks over to the bathroom, each step dragging over the slick linoleum floor. There is a mirror in there, just as expected from a civilian hospital. In Konoha the risks are too dangerous to leave such a fierce weapon in the rooms of a shinobi patient. 

Reflected in the mirror is a young boy, academy age, but decidedly _civilian_ in a way Lee can’t place. Something in the look of his body, the lack of calluses on his hands.

The body doesn’t look like his, even aside from being entirely too youthful. A phrase he expects he will never, and would never say again. Even as a ten year old child, Lee had never been so slender and weak, or his skin so soft and unscarred. 

His face is almost the same, but different enough he feels chills down his spine. His eyes are still round and dark, the lashes thick and long, the same as before. His eyebrows are thick and bushy, but with a slight taper at the ends instead of blocky. But this child is still a growing sprout and surely in a few years, with puberty, they would grow in more. His hair is silky and black, but cut too short, not the perfect bowl cut (both easy to style and cut!) of his old body. That at least will easily be fixed by waiting a few years.

His facial features are so close, almost a perfect replica. But he’d almost have preferred to look entirely different. The little inconsistencies are unsettling, _strange_. The way his nose is more prominent, his lips somehow not right in a way he can’t put his finger on.

It’s like an imposter trying to recreate his body, the big picture was captured by not the details. He grits his teeth and looks away. There’s nothing to be done about it, and Gai-sensei taught him to never falter in the face of difficulty! 

He is Rock Lee, Might Gai’s student, a genius of hard work! Rule #4 is Never Give Up. Despite all odds, he’s been given a new chance, a new place to work hard and achieve his dreams…

He slumps forward, weariness pressing down on his shoulders. Even in this life, the boy’s — his — parents are dead. With the authorities having the wrong name, even if there are relatives, they won’t be found. The boy doesn’t exist anymore.

There is only him, Rock Lee, a man displaced from his own body into a world he doesn’t recognize.

But he’ll make the most of it, that’s all he can do.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I have created this pairing I guess?????? This is the first time I've done that and I'm scared (ಥ▽ಥ). Writing Rock Lee is... so hard guys. If you have any tips and tricks please leave them below. I've revised this countless times and still feel it's sorta OOC. Will try to bring more Lee flavor next time! My excuse is he died and things suck for him right now. Even Lee can get down right??? 
> 
> Anyways, hope you like it! This will be more episodic, so expect time to lapse by quickly. He won't stay a child for long!


End file.
